if the only way to buy/sell your stock electronically is through HTML then the only way to buy/sell your stock electronically is through HTML.

the only way around it would be if the broker had a back end interface through which you could communicate more easily (typically some sort of XML data exchange). they would have to provide it and tell you the format for data exchange. AFAIK brokers DO have such systems, they are just exclusively for broker to broker dealings and without a doubt are either VPN'd or IP restricted to only known partner machines. the validation there is likewise undoubtably fairly secure and would most likely be illegal for you to interface through were you even to deciper the mechanism of information exchange.

basically you are limited to using the channels that the brokers have set up for individual clients which means phone and web. if you want to automate your process, you are stuck parsing HTML and submitting forms through HTTP connections. you are right that if they change the format you are screwed and have to rewrite your code.

the only other option would be to contact your broker and ask them if they provide any back-end access to clients.

it's also possible, i believe, with a good broker, to leave fairly complex instructions, like sell if price drops below X rises above Y for stock Z, or buy if price drops below X for stock Y. but that probably costs more

-me

[EDIT: ps. another thing you might want to consider if you REALLY want to automate your finances is to see if the brokerage will accept email orders. if so you can just automate the sending of emails which is easier than going through the whole parsing HTML deal. this is obviously WAY easier if you have access to your own web box running an email service. and perhaps easier still if that box is a *NIX box on which you can easily script cron jobs and the like.]

[edited by - Palidine on October 9, 2003 6:18:55 PM]

ah, one more thing about the HTML parsing. a good deal of sites these days do authentication and session persistance through cookies. having sessionids on the URL line allow easy hijaking of sessions. so a further complication to the HTML deal is that you will have to implement cookies in your mock-browser app.

-me

I actually had this idea too. But never got into it to deeply.

anyways this is how I would do it.

1. make a very simple browser that just goes to which site you want and then downloads the HTML version of that webpage.

2. tokenize and parse the HTML page and make sure syntax match with how the site shows their stock rates, eh cost whatever. Extract them.

3. Compare the numbers you''ve extracted and do some addition multiplication divition and subtraction.

4. Buy/Sell whatever...

Websites that display stock tickers usually have a 15-20 minutes delay, and the delay will increase if you are requesting prices in a too rapid succession. Most if not all brokerage firms will require a phone call or an email confirmation before proceeding with your internet orders.

''Daytrading'' is surrounded with bylaws that prevents anyone without proper background and registration to venture into. Once you get the license, there are tons of software and providers that can link you up with a brokerage firm and get real-time data, including analyst reports and financial news. The investment course is around $750 and the software + link is around $1500/year; more sophisticated systems that include modeling, technical analysis, and portfolio backtracking will cost you around $5000 and up. I don''t think you could build yourself something equivalent ''on-the-cheap'', given the constraints on the data sources and trading checks.

BTW, what does it have to do with games programming?